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COVER STORY
January 2015
MODERN MINING
23
A section of Omnia’s new
nitric acid plant with the
ammonium nitrate plant in
the background. Hay views
the plant as a strategic asset
that will give Omnia and
BME a competitive edge for
years.
in both its home market, South Africa, and the
Southern African region generally, with the
exception of Zimbabwe. “There’s been some
shuffling of contracts between the major sup-
pliers but this is nothing unusual and overall
we’ve been encouraged by the stability of the
Southern African market. In South Africa
itself we were far less affected by the plati-
num mining strike than our competitors due to
our relatively small exposure to underground
platinum mining while we continue to have a
good workload in Botswana, Namibia, where
we have two new contracts, Zambia, where we
remain very active at the expanding Kansanshi
mine, which is Africa’s biggest copper mine,
and in the DRC, where we now count global
miner ENRC as a major customer.”
Of course, the two big mining growth pro
jects in the Southern African region are First
Quantum’s Sentinel copper mine in north-
western Zambia, which will rival Kansanshi
(also owned by First Quantum) in size and
which is now commissioning, and the Husab
uranium mine in Namibia, still in the early
stages of construction. Between them, these
two projects represent an investment of at
least US$4 billion in Africa’s mining sector.
“The explosives supply contracts for both
these mines have been awarded to compa-
nies not based in Africa,” notes Hay. “This is
disappointing as Africa needs a strong ‘home
grown’ explosives industry to underpin the
development of its mining sector.”
Discussing West Africa, Hay says this has
unquestionably been the most difficult market
for BME in recent months, a combination of the
effects of falling commodity prices, the Ebola
outbreak and – in some countries – political
factors. “We lost one contract in Mauritania and
generally we’ve seen a cutback in production at
mines in the area, which has in turn impacted
on the volumes of explosives they require.
Although we still have a strong belief in the
potential of the region, we are slightly restruc-
turing our West African operation to align it
with the current business realities.”
Turning to BME’s technological expertise,
Hay says that BME has now completed a sev-
eral-year period of intense R&D which has seen
its AXXIS electronic detonator system reach
full maturity and gain widespread acceptance
in mining and quarrying, its BlastMap III soft-
ware become ever more versatile, enabling
complex timing designs to be undertaken, and
its new portable emulsion pump being fully
commercialised after six years of development
and trials.
“We’re excited by all these products, of
course, but our narrow reef technology is
extremely significant,” comments Hay. “As
you probably know, BME is the market leader
when it comes to emulsion explosives for the
surface mining sector. But we’ve traditionally
had a low share of the underground market. We
believe the portable emulsion pump will act as
a ‘game changer’, allowing us to grow signifi-
cantly in this segment of the market. Indeed
“We believe
the portable
emulsion pump
will act as a
‘game changer’,
allowing us to
grow significantly
in this segment of
the market.”